An owner in a fantasy baseball head-to-head points league need not worry about stolen bases, home runs, ERA or WHIP, but rather total points and, more specifically, how to score more points than his/her opponent on a weekly basis.
There are many creative ways to gain an edge over your opponent in a points league each week of the season, including loading up on two-start pitchers, starting RP/SP eligible pitchers in your RP slots or filling your lineup with players with seven games in a week or double-headers scheduled. But, the best and only way to gain that edge on draft day is by knowing and understanding the point differentials by each position and determining where your top picks are best spent.
Think of it like a fantasy football draft. Everyone knows that quarterbacks will lead the league in scoring throughout the season, and while Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees and Tom Brady might separate themselves from the pack a bit, a majority of quarterbacks worth drafting will offer similar scoring potential. Therefore, it’s often running backs like Adrian Peterson, Chris Johnson, Arian Foster and others that are chosen with the top picks in a draft because their worth is far superior to the average running back in the league.
Similar thinking should be applied in a head-to-head points league where, most likely, starting pitchers, first basemen and possibly outfielders will score the most points throughout the season, but they might not offer an edge over your opponent as he/she too is likely to have one or multiple top-scoring pitchers and outfielders.
Therefore, by knowing point differential, you’ll be able to see where you can gain an advantage on your opponents before the season even starts.
See each position’s point differential after the jump:
Based on point differential, I think it’s safe to say that a first or second round pick would be wisely spent on one of the top three second basemen – Ian Kinsler, Dustin Pedroia or Robinson Cano – as Kinsler outscored the #12 second basemen by 273 points and the trio outscored the field by 145 points.
There was also a noticeable differential between the Top 3 outfielders and the Top 36, but considering there were 19 outfielders that scored more than 400 points as opposed to 5 second basemen, it would seem that those points could be made up elsewhere, possibly while your opponents are drafting second or third tier infielders.
Other observations:
Jose Bautista had the highest individual point differential at a position as his 559 points outscored the second best third basemen (Michael Young) by 86 points. Carlos Santana was the next best with 35 more points than Mike Napoli at the catcher position.
Shortstop didn’t have quite the differential I might’ve expected with Jose Reyes, Troy Tulowitzki and Jimmy Rollins averaging only 94 more points than the Top 12. My guess is the minimal amount of strikeouts throughout the Top 12 combined with a balance of speed and OBP is what keeps the shortstop differential in check. While others at your draft target Tulowitzki early for position scarcity, it might be wiser to lean toward Jose Bautista, Evan Longoria, Robinson Cano, Dustin Pedroia and Ian Kinsler.
Considering the Top 3 catchers only average 56 more points than the Top 12, you are probably best off waiting until late in your draft to grab a backstop.
For questions on point differential, your draft or fantasy baseball H2H points league strategy, please comment below.
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Bench in Points League
Is there any strategy on building your bench in a Points League. Should I lean more on SP, hitting or a certain counting category?
Fantasy Baseball Vision - January 30, 2012
Pitching, pitching and more pitching
I had planned to write an article on bench strategy sometime in the near future, and to me, its pretty simple – stock up on pitching.
Most H2H Points Leagues are weekly lineups where 9 times out of 10 you’ll be starting the same 9 hitters each and every week and unless you’ve drafted oft injured players like Nelson Cruz, Kevin Youkilis, Josh Hamilton and Rickie Weeks, you won’t need much depth in terms of position players. If it’s a daily league, you might want to stash a couple of slash players like Cuddyer, Kendrick, Bonifacio, Zobrist and whatnot, but I’d still want more pitching.
Reason being, the more pitching you draft and accumulate the more chance you hit the jackpot with this year’s Ryan Vogelsong or Doug Fister and the more of those types of pitchers you have rotating through two-start weeks, the more chance you’ll have high point totals each week, at least much higher than a backup 3B is likely to provide.
Kevin Boger - January 30, 2012
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